It is known that hot reduced material, such as for example iron oxides, should be kept under shielding gas during storage in order to avoid re-oxidation processes. Various devices are known for this, providing a shielding of air or else a flushing with a shielding gas.
With processes for reducing charge materials and with smelting reduction processes there is the problem that, whenever there are disturbances of the process or planned shutdowns, the charge materials have to be removed from the units in order that they do not cool down and solidify, that is to say that the charge materials do not solidify in the process reactors. Furthermore, before planned shutdowns, the charge material must be removed to allow maintenance of the installation to be carried out. On account of the size of the installations, in the case of a shutdown it is usually necessary to deal with large amounts of hot charge materials.